In a message dated 11/16/2000 6:45:04 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> There's another possibility, just that awnings (like
> heavy curtains) fell out of fashion, and that, retrospectively, we overrate
> their actual uitilty.
I would think that awnings make the most difference in buildings that have a
high exposure to sun, and a high window to wall ratio (it seems logical that,
if you don't have big windows, awnings aren't going to make a huge difference
in interior tempreature.) I also would think that the direction of the
windows makes a difference. Certain sides of buildings don't get a lot of
direct sun, and for these residents, awnings wouldn't make a lot of
difference, even more so if the windows on that building were small, and the
occupants wanted to brighten the interior. So for these units, there is no
reason to replace awnings, and in some cases, probably impetus to remove them.
For units where there is a benefit from awnings, improvement in technology
(i.e. better fans and air conditioning), cheap landlords, fashion (i.e. ideal
of the streamlined building) probably all contribute to non-replacement. Once
you have a trend toward non-replacement, it gets harder to acquire the item,
firms go out of business, which then contributes to the trend. (Can anyone
say Clinker Brick?) In large apartment buildings, I expect there would be a
certain pressure toward uniformity. So once you have a significant amount of
people doing something, then you can add peer pressure into the mix ("Well,
the Jones' don't have awnings on their windows anymore...") And I also
imagine that some buildings regulate their external appearance, so perhaps
some awnings were forcibly removed/regulated by the building's own management.
However, I don't think that any of these reasons actually has any relation to
how effective awnings really are. Does fashion ever have anything to do with
how useful something is? Superior technology doesn't always make a product
successful: think of the Betamax and the MacIntosh. Even the Post-It Note
almost tanked when 3M first marketed it.
-Heidi
(I can't believe I wrote all that)
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